‘Old?’ Rojer asked. ‘I loved that room. Best acoustics in the whole ripping inn.’

‘It was not fitting, husband,’ Sikvah said, and Rojer sighed. This was not an argument he could hope to win.

The front door opened, and a group of Jongleurs entered, easily visible by their instrument cases and bright motley. A young woman was with them, and the sight of her filled him with a horrible guilt. Kendall, his apprentice who had nearly lost her life to his stupidity.

A memory flashed in his mind, Gared carrying Kendall, cut and bloody, from the battlefield. He shook his head to clear it.

‘Rojer!’ Kendall cried, rushing over to him and wrapping him in a hug. ‘They said you were back! We were so worrieAUGH!’

She was pulled away from him, and Rojer saw Sikvah twisting the young woman’s wrist with two fingers, immobilizing her as easily as she might an impudent toddler. ‘Who are you, to lay hands on my husband?’

Kendall looked at her, and even through her grimace of pain, a look of surprise took her. ‘Husband?’

‘Sikvah!’ Rojer snapped. ‘Release her! This is Kendall, one of my apprentices.’

Sikvah let go of Kendall’s wrist immediately and the young woman snatched it back, rubbing. Sikvah and Amanvah began circling her like wolves, appraising her from every angle.

‘You greenlanders allow your slaves great liberty,’ Amanvah noted, ‘but she seems fit enough. How many others do you own?’

‘Ent his slave,’ Kendall snapped. ‘Nobody owns me.’

‘She’s right,’ Rojer said. ‘She and the other apprentices are all free folk, and Kendall is the most talented of the lot.’

His wives continued to circle the girl as the other Jongleurs came over. Rojer knew them all by reputation if not personally. Their leader was Hary Roller. Once, early in his career, Hary had played while standing upon a great ball. He hadn’t done the trick since, but the name Roller had forever stuck.

Hary was old now, retired from performance and teaching, but he was respected both as a composer and a cellist. Guildmaster Cholls had promised masters, but it seemed the established ones had little interest in risking themselves in the Hollow. Sly Sixstring was even older, the guitar over his shoulder worn and weathered. Rojer had seen him perform once and was stunned at the nimbleness of Sly’s wrinkled fingers, but that was a decade ago at least.

The others were younger, performers Rojer had been competing with for street corners little more than a year ago. Wil Piper had still been an apprentice then. Rojer wondered if he’d been elevated just for agreeing to this assignment.

Hary shook Rojer’s hand. ‘We’re happy to see you returned, Master Halfgrip. In your absence, I have been following your agreement with the guildmaster and teaching sound signs to your apprentices. They were … undisciplined, but I have made some progress …’

Undisciplined. Rojer snorted. That was one way to put it. They were a bunch of bumpkins he had sat in a circle and taught to play by ear. There had been none of the formal training of the guild, something Roller was known to be a stickler for.

But those days were coming to a close.

‘Forget all that,’ Rojer said, reaching into his satchel for the pages of music he had prepared, outlining the Song of Waning. He slapped them against the man’s chest, and Roller reflexively took them. ‘New song I need everyone to learn. Ask your apprentices to make lots of copies.’

Roller looked at the pages, startled. ‘A theory …?’

‘Tested,’ Rojer said. ‘Worked for my trio. Let’s see if it works for others.’

Rojer’s room was just as he’d left it, but after so much time in the Palace of Mirrors and the best rooms of every inn from here to the Bounty, he saw it in a new light. It was small and cramped, just a bed to flop on and a sundry trunk.

Always keep your bags packed, Arrick used to say.

Rojer went to the trunk and began rummaging in it, but Sikvah put a hand on his arm. ‘Please, husband. Let the servants handle that. Your labour shames us.’

‘Don’t have servants,’ Rojer said.

‘Then I will have Smitt’s people move your things when the new rooms are prepared.’ Sikvah pulled at him until he relented and went to sit on the bed.

He looked at Amanvah. ‘What did you mean, “As it should be”?’

‘Eh?’ she asked.

‘Back in the count’s hall,’ Rojer said. ‘When I said I had no patron, and needed none.’

Amanvah bowed. ‘I have cast the bones since our … disagreement, husband. They tell me you must be free of fealty if your power is to remain pure. I apologize for doubting you. Sikvah and I are yours now. Whatever path you take in your battle with the alagai, we will follow. This is why my father wed us to you, and we will no longer forsake you. If you command we strip to our coloured silk and sing in the night, we will do this.’

‘And if I command you sing The Battle of Cutter’s Hollow?’ Rojer asked.

‘We will do as you command, and find ways to make you regret it.’ Amanvah winked. ‘We are your wives, not slaves.’

Rojer was stunned a moment, then laughed out loud.

‘Do you trust this Painted Man?’ Amanvah said. ‘Do you know what happened between him and my father?’

‘Yes, I trust him, but no,’ Rojer shook his head, ‘I don’t know what happened. I will speak with him tonight. Maybe I’ll learn something.’

‘Will you share what he tells you with us?’ Amanvah asked.

Rojer looked at her a long time. ‘If he asks me to keep his counsel private, I will.’ He frowned, then shrugged. ‘Unless I decide I shouldn’t.’ He smiled at her. ‘Gotta be free, don’t I?’

19

Spit and Wind
333 AR Summer11 Dawns Before New Moon

Leesha sat in Bruna’s favourite rocker, wrapped in the old woman’s shawl as she worked her needlepoint, trying to ignore the blinding pain behind her eye. Darsy had taken care of the cottage in her absence, but the garden showed the woman still had a brown thumb, and she was hopeless at keeping things in their proper place. It would be days before the place was restored to Leesha’s satisfaction, everything just so.

Even so, simply being back in her mentor’s chair and shawl was an enormous comfort. Many times in recent weeks she had doubted she might ever see home again. Even now, it seemed almost surreal.

But why shouldn’t it? She was home, but in countless ways things would never be the same. There was a Royal in the Hollow now, determined to throw out their old ways, and much of Leesha’s power in the process. Could Leesha stop him? Should she?

There were Krasians building a tent city in her backyard, on land Bruna had entrusted to her. Would they help bring about the peace Leesha dreamed of, or be a cancer in the centre of the Hollow, as she saw in her nightmares?

Arlen, whom she had thought would always keep the Hollow safe, had left them to fend for themselves, and come back a changed man. It remained to be seen if this was for better or worse.

And there’s a baby in my belly.

Even if the chemics hadn’t confirmed it, every day made her more and more certain of the life growing within her. Ahmann Jardir’s child. It had to be, for she had lain with no other – but that, too, seemed surreal. Arlen had feared putting a demon child in her, and she told him she did not care. Now the demon of the desert had planted a child in her, and she told herself the same, but was it true? The child, she would love and cherish, but how many lives would be lost when Ahmann came forward to claim it? She could not hide her state forever. Night, the dama’ting might already have seen it in their foretellings.